MAKING MARIJUANA FREE WILL ELIMINATE ORGANIZED CRIME

Re: 'Will pot gains go up in smoke?' Editorial, May 30.

Congratulations on the most comprehensive and accurate evaluation of the
issues surrounding the government's proposed pot laws.

As a matter of fact, this opinion captures all the points that I have been
raising with my MP Jim Petersen and, most recently with our MPP David Young
in response to some of the moronic ramblings of the Attorney General for
Ontario, Norm Sterling, on this issue.

I will copy and send this editorial to each to ensure that this view is not
only that of one of their crazy constituents, but is one approaching the
mainstream.

In fact, if you really look at the proposed legislation, in the absence of
the usual law and order and gateway drug rhetoric that accompanies this
issue, the law proposed is worse than what we have now.

It is disgraceful that the brain trust of the Minister of Justice for
Canada could not create a law that eliminates all aspects of criminality in
relation to marijuana and its derivatives.

A picture comes to mind that would be funny if it weren't so sad: the
minister visits U.S. drug czar Paul Walters to make compromises to proposed
Canadian legislation in an effort to appease a foreign government bent on
ruining the lives of its own citizens that use this weed.

It is reprehensible that our elected officials should take heed from a
nation that jails its own for longer periods for the simple possession of
marijuana than they do for murders.

The so-called war on drugs has contributed, in the most part, to the
increase in the number of Americans imprisoned in the U.S. from one million
in 1992 by two million more in 2002.

For his part, Petersen agreed with your position and mine but the
government was deeply concerned about any changes that the U.S. might see
as a softening of such laws by Canada.

This is troubling and we need to send a message to our MPs that, within
reason (and this is within reason), we need to make laws for Canadians, by
Canadians.

Under existing laws, marijuana has become a cash crop for biker gangs, the
triads and Vietnamese gangs and stiffening the penalty for cultivation
plays right into their hands in so many ways.

Unsafe operations, stolen hydro in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and
gangland tactics reminiscent of Prohibition pose as much of a threat to
Canadian citizens as does the lost opportunity of a person forced to carry
a criminal record for the simple possession and/or cultivation for personal
use.

If there should be a law related to marijuana, perhaps it should be that it
should be against the law to sell marijuana for money, or in return for
anything of any value.

In other words, by law, marijuana must be free. Let's see what effect that
would have on organized crime.

As a parent of teenagers and a taxpayer, I believe that every Canadian is
simply tired of the wasted resources, paid for by us, to control the use of
marijuana.

We need to tell politicians, every day, that Canadians are able to make the
right decisions for themselves and we don't need a gang of criminals or
politicians to tell us what we can and cannot do in the privacy of our own
homes.

Thanks again for producing an editorial that hits on the faults of this
proposed legislation and is right on the mark. Now we have to get the
politicians to be accountable to the voters.

Brad Blaney